


May Not Be In Your Best Interests (Part II)

by drea_rev



Series: May Not Be In Your Best Interests [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 15:09:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7762639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drea_rev/pseuds/drea_rev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part two of the "Bittle doesn't take things as well as he does in canon" AU. First part can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7750279</p>
            </blockquote>





	May Not Be In Your Best Interests (Part II)

Part Two

  

Bittle is at March and April's dorm. The air is toxic with marijuana and nail polish fumes. The girls are doing their toenails while listening to him speculate about his future.

“I could afford a state school, Georgia has some good ones. Well, I _say_ I can afford it—it'll take all my savings, plus I'd have to sell my car, but then if I live at home I'd have no way to get to class...”

“No hockey?” March asks.

“Well—“ Bittle looks, eyes watering, down at his phone, “No. But even if they did, I wouldn't play. To be honest, if I do quit Samwell because of hockey, I...I don't think I'd have the heart to ever play again. Even now I think about how I used to enjoy the sport and...even when I do something right I hear Jack's voice in my head...I think it's been ruined for me.”

April frowned. “That sucks, Eric.”

Bittle swallowed. “It's okay. Honestly, the team isn't that bad. They just...they just don't know what it's like to be as scared as I am, you know?”

“They can't understand you might still be scared because of what happened before your concussion?”

“They just try to give me pep talks but that doesn't wipe the slate clean. I think they think it does. And the pep talks make me feel worse than the chirping.”

“Are there any culinary programs at that state school?” March asks.

 

Bittle's professor beams when receiving his paper. Bittle has upped the ante on all the classes he's taking this semester in case he needs to transfer. He's thinking ahead, knowing he'll need good references so it doesn't look like he dropped out due to not being able to handle student-athlete life. Which is just what will have happened.

No one on the team, fortunately, suspects a thing. Bittle becomes a father figure to “Chowder”, Christopher Chow, and laughs with Shitty, Ransom, and Holster between 30 Rock marathons and Xbox massacres. But he does draft two separate letters, one to his mother, one to his father, explaining in two different ways the same thing: _I'm sorry I disappointed you, please take me back._

It's Jack who ruins everything.

March and April, who suffer Holster and Ransom's awkward flirting to spend time with Bittle, are helping him with a recipe off of Tastespotting. The pair gets “mad munchies” and then wants to eat everything on the aggregation website, and Bittle lovingly obliges them. It's an odd tart with sage and pears, and Bittle swoons over the beautiful photography.

“Eric, the blogger is—from the New England Culinary institute!” April says, scrolling. “That must be close, right?”

“Oh my goodness!” Bittle drops his towel and runs over. “Oh--”

The three of them type the name into Google and have mixed reactions upon finding out where it is.

“It's...REALLY far.”

“I mean it's probably beautiful there!” Bittle says, his emotions complicated. “But—it's—well—I mean it's better than Georgia!”

“It's expensive. Maybe they have scholarships,” March muses.

“Now that I'm thinking about it,” Bittle leans back against the counter and stares off into the corner of the ceiling, decorated with a piece of congealed hamburger meat someone probably tossed up there on a dare, “I could just go to Le Cordon Bleu in Boston. I mean I'd have to have three jobs on the side, but--”

“Three jobs on the side of what?” Bittle hears Jack say.

He turns to the captain and makes himself smile. “Oh, you know. Grad school.”

Jack grins at him as he gets a yogurt from the fridge. “There are masters in baking, eh?”

“Eric is a master of baking,” March says coolly.

They wait until he leaves, then huddle together for whispers. (“So how much do you think you could sell the car for, Eric?” “It's a 2010 Ford, 20,000 miles on it, give or take.”)

 

 

Alone in his room, Bittle moves the letters to his mother and father from Word into his samwell.edu email account, saving both as drafts. He wants to wait until the weekend so that they aren't coming home to it after hard days at work. He can't sleep after doing it, though. He decides to send it Sunday morning, so that going to church afterward hopefully softens the blow.

At four in the morning, incessant knocking begins on his door. “Bittle. Checking clinic.”

Bittle grits his teeth but gets ready and follows Jack to Faber. The rink is beautiful as always. Too bad.

“Now,” Jack says, turning to him, silhouetted against the half-light, “What's this about quitting, Bittle? Where did you get the idea?”

Bittle must stand there in shock for a moment, because Jack skates up to him and gets in his face. The same way he did that one time, except now he's saying something else. “Bittle. I'm not joking. What made you want to quit?”

Bittle would laugh, except that's not what Jack wants. Instead he just stares at Jack. Blinks a couple of times.

“Bittle,” Jack scratches his chest awkwardly. Then he looks away. Then he looks back, angry again. “BITTLE. I am not joking. I need to know.”

Bittle skates off to center ice. “So, I think we were working on stick checks last time--”

“I need to know.”

“Jack,” Bittle says softly, “I might be kicked off the team. I'm just not pulling my weight. I'm pretty sure you already knew. So, how about we--”

Jack skates up to him and grabs his shoulder. “You're not getting kicked off the team.”

“I fainted when Dex brushed against me. Coach gave me a warning after that. Why don't we talk about this later?” _Later meaning never_ , Bittle thinks.

“I'll talk to coach. He shouldn't have told you that. You're coming off a concussion.”

Bittle grits his teeth. “My concussion is better. My play isn't. Look Jack, you don't know anything about being bad at the sport of ice hockey. Just like you don't know about—about being locked overnight in supplies closets and—and all the rest of it. It's _mine_.”

Jack leans forward and says in an angry mutter: “You don't know what I know, so shut up.”

Bittle takes a huffing breath as he skates backward: Jack's toothpaste is worse than marijuana and nail polish right now. “Oh? Tell me about the hallways _you_ stared at the floor of hoping nobody would call you f***ot. There are good reasons I don't like checking--”

“I never said there weren't--”

“--and nobody else on the team is like this about it and it's obvious I'm not even necessary and if it gets to the point I'm messing up other people's games--”

“--let me finish, Bittle--”

“--and I'm the only one who—mmf!”

Jack grabs him again, except now he covers Bittle's mouth. “Look, Bittle, everyone gets feedback on their game and I don't know who made you think your game is the only flawed one. You do a lot of things right that other players don't do and that's why you're an asset—your speed and your puck handling is way better than Ransom and Holster's--”

“They are _defensemen_ ,” Bittle shoves Jack away with both arms and skates to his side, fuming. “I'm weak, not stupid, Jack.”

Jack glares at him. “And who told you you were weak?”

“'Eat more protein',” Bittle spat. “It was funny the first ten times. Look, I am aware of being tiny and I cried after Coach told me that? I might lose my scholarship, Jack, and I—I want to have other options. And I don't need you talking to coach about _any_ of it.” He added, sternly. “You don't know what it's like.”

“Bittle, you're not weak...” Jack whispered, not even making eye contact with him anymore. Bittle started laughing.

 

 

During the game with UMass Lowell, Bittle gets snapped the puck by Ollie. He weaves in and out of his teammates until he's not with them anymore. A hefty D-man slams him into the boards, but not before he passes to Wicks.

He forces himself to keep skating, and to not cry, because he still hasn't sent his parents their letters, two Sundays later. The hit left him winded and choking.

Coach Hall asks him if he knows the guy who checked him. “Why were you being so friendly? Push back, Bittle.”

“Thanks for making me feel like I made NO progress,” he mutters later, in the Haus kitchen, passive-aggressively kneading a bit too hard.

He didn't realize Jack was in the entryway. “I'm going to talk to him.”

Bittle wheels on him as if he was wearing skates, then walks up to Jack and sticks a finger in his face. He doesn't care anymore. “Jack Zimmermann, mind your own business.”

“You're different now, Bittle...look...my father knows the ins and outs of hockey. And one of those ins is—concussions have long term side effects. You've been different lately, we've all noticed it. Depression is a long term side effect of a concussion.”

“W-what?” Bittle pulls back, blinking. “I don't have depression.”

“Have you gone somewhere and gotten checked?”

Bittle snaps back to annoyance. “Jack? After me fainting during practice, you want to tell coach my feelings are hurt too?”

A pair of strong hands grip his shoulders. Bittle is instantly aware of how much taller Jack is, even without skates. “Mental illness isn't a joke. I could tell them to be aware of how those things affect you.”

Jack lets go without being prompted, but he goes on. “I don't believe either coach wants you off the team. I don't believe that for a second. And—Bittle—I'd like you to tell me about the time you got compared to someone else every time someone talked about you.”

“You're still good at hockey,” Bittle fires back.

The two men stare at each other for a moment in disgust before one of them disappears and slams a door upstairs. Thus summoned, Shitty can be heard coming to Jack's door, loudly saying expletives, and then the door being closed again after he is let in.


End file.
